


Good Boy

by clairell



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Cat/Human Hybrids, Fluff, Hybrid Zayn, M/M, Past Abuse, kitty hybrid, references of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-18
Updated: 2014-03-18
Packaged: 2018-01-16 06:13:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1335013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clairell/pseuds/clairell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The boys find Zayn, a cat hybrid, in an alley on a winter night.  They take him home.  They fall in love with him.  </p><p>Zayn is praised for the first time in his whole life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Boy

“Would any of you like to remind me whose grand idea it was to walk to the pub in the middle of the fucking winter?”  Louis asked, teeth chattering as he pulled his hands inside the sleeves of his jumper.

“It was your grand idea,” Harry said, rolling his eyes as he tucked Louis inside the folds of his own oversized jumper.  “Which way to turn, Liam?” He asked, as the wind and snow blocked out nearly every sign that would normally direct them home.

“Right,” Liam answered, leading the other three in that direction.

“Ugh!” Niall shouted, manoeuvring around the puddle he’d stepped in.  “I’ve got water in my shoes,” he grunted, shivering even more when he realised the water was freezing to his feet.

“You going to be all right, there, Nialler?”

“They’re going to have to amputate my feet,” he mumbled, allowing Liam to hug him close so that they could share their warmth.

_Mrrooow!_

“Did you hear that?”  Harry asked, snapping his head in the direction the sound came from.

“Hear what?” Liam asked, stopping in his tracks.

_Mrrroooww!_

“That!” Harry turned and looked down the alley they had stopped next to and was surprised to find not a cat, but a full-sized man.  At a closer look, he found this man to be a hybrid; he had cat ears and a tail, as well as fur covering most of his body.  “Are you cold?” Harry asked softly.

It nodded.  Harry scratched behind its ears and it purred gladly, rubbing its soft face into Harry’s thigh.

“You’re coming home with us,” Harry said, picking it up in his arms and carrying it the rest of the way to their flat.

~&~

“The poor thing looks starved!” Louis said as he ran a towel across its thin frame.  His ribs and hips were protruding like he hadn’t eaten in a very long time.

It shivered violently, but it was also glad to finally have all that water and ice removed from its fur.

“Does he have a name?” Niall asked as he brought blankets from the bedroom and piled them on the floor to create a sort of cat bed in the middle of the den. 

Harry found a collar around its neck and a little silver tag that read: _Zayn_

“Zayn?  Is that your name, boy?” Harry asked, and Zayn just purred.

“I’ll bet you’ve got an owner out there looking for you,” Liam said, tangling his fingers in Zayn’s soft, black fur.

“Can’t we keep him?” Harry pleaded, pulling Zayn onto his lap, which Zayn quickly found as a comfortable space. 

“Yeah, Li!” Niall added, batting his eyelashes at the older man.  “He’s cute!”

“We’ll see in the morning,” Liam laughed, somehow knowing exactly how this was going to end.   “I think we should get this little guy something to eat.”

“How’s that sound, Zayn?  Are you hungry?”” Harry asked.  Zayn’s purring increased in volume as he nodded.

Food?  The _word_ simply made Zayn’s head spin.

“Hate to say it,” Louis said as he searched through the kitchen cabinets, “but we haven’t got much in the way of cat food.”

“Tuna fish,” Liam said after a moment, pulling a tin of it from the back of the cabinet. “That’s good enough cat food as any.”  He opened the lid and set it in front of Zayn who’d devoured nearly all of it in one swallow.

“Poor boy,” Harry said sadly as he stroked a hand down Zayn’s spine.  “Your last owner probably never fed you, did they?”

Zayn finished in a matter of minutes.  He rubbed the top of his head against Harry’s chest in thanks, before slowly nodding off in his lap.

Harry transferred him over the ‘bed’ that Niall had made.  “Our room is just down the hall if you need anything,” he said, giving the boy/cat/whatever (Harry himself wasn’t even quite sure) a kiss on the forehead before joining his boyfriends in bed.

~&~

Zayn tossed and turned in his bed all night.  By the wee hours of the morning, he had strewn all the bedding out from underneath him and it ended up all over the room.

He managed to sleep for a few winks, but was startled awake by nightmares.

He was running, which for him works better on four legs than just two, and his ‘master’ was behind him calling, “Get back here, you little shit!”  But Zayn ducked into an alley and watched his master run right on by.  He curled himself into a ball and shivered and shivered and prayed that his master wouldn’t return.

He woke up and he realised that it wasn’t a nightmare at all.  It was real.

Tears streamed down his furry face and dripped from his whiskers onto the floor.  He covered his face with his paws and waited.

When he saw the sun rising behind the curtains in the windows, he figured it was morning, so he went down the hall to the room he knew they were sleeping in and he pawed at the door.

Niall answered with sleepy eyes, as it was only 5 am.  “Look who came to cuddle with us!” He exclaimed as he picked Zayn up with only a bit of difficulty, and set him in the center of the largest bed that Zayn had ever seen.

Louis was greeted by the subtle brush of a tail against his nose, but he didn’t mind at all.  Harry was presented with a light lick with a rough tongue on his cheek.  Niall and Liam (who had officially decided that they would keep the little guy) were scratching Zayn’s tummy.  Zayn had never purred so much in his entire life.

Of course he had no way of telling them of what had happened in his nightmares or at his old owner’s house, but he felt like they knew it somehow and all these cuddles were their condolences.

“Such a good boy,” Harry intoned, smiling a sleepy smile.

Zayn thought it was the first time that he’d been praised in his whole life


End file.
